What's the difference between a consonant and a vowel?
In grade school, I'm pretty sure you've been taught that there are 5 vowels: AEIOU. The rest are consonants. However, this distinction fails to take into account the sounds of the letters. There are more sounds in English than there are letters (in the written form). The sounds and letters of a particular language do not always form a 1 to 1 correspondence, and this is why we must use 2 letters to represent a single sound (such as "sh").
How we produce speech sounds
The process in which we produce sound by using our vocal tract is much like that of a wind instrument. Each sound differs from another sound by a unique combination of features: the way you shape your mouth and tongue and move parts of the vocal apparatus when you make the sound. Air coming from the lungs passes through the vocal tract, which shapes it into different sounds. Then the air exits the vocal tract through the mouth and/or nose.
What differentiates a consonant and a vowel in terms of speech sounds?
Quite simply: Consonants are pronounced by obstructing the airflow through the vocal tract.
(Note: the details of how to pronounce every sound is beyond the scope of this site)
Example:
The [p] sound is made by obstructing air at the lips. When you say the word put, air is built up behind the lips and then released.
On the other hand, vowels are different from consonant sounds in that they are produced by passing air through different shapes of the mouth and different positions of the tongue and lips.
Examples:
For the "ahhh" sound (the vowel in the word pot, IPA [ɑ]) the tongue's position is in the lower back of the mouth.
For the "eeeee" sound (the vowel in the word be, IPA [i]) the tongue's position is in the upper front of the mouth. (This is why we say cheese when we take pictures!)
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Consonants and Vowels
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So is English "r" technically considered to be a vowel? We don't touch our tongue anywhere, so it doesn't seem like we are obstructing the airflow.
The R sound in English (along with W, L, and Y) are known as approximants. This is because the vocal tract is not narrowed enough to produce the audible friction that typically comes with other consonants.
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I knew a lot of this kind of thing. But i had no idea it was because the different positions of the tounge in the mouth. Really suprised me. Good read.
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Now I know why my mom always made me say cheese! lol That is really cool. I will pass this one on to my daughter.
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English is amazing yet so utterly unexplainable at times. It would be interesting to study further the way your mouth forms all those sounds and how that compares to other languages.
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This is a really good article, informative and useful. Maybe if you can post about diphthongs too. Thank you for sharing.
Great post! Thanks for the helpful info. Will use for my own projects.
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nobody can say the italian "r" in germany, funny
It’s a good post for those who are really interested in learning perfect English grammar. Thanks for posting this blog.
Hmmmnn.. I never thought that it as a reason for saying "Cheese". Thanks for the heads up. I have issue on my pronounciation and what you shared today is very beneficial. Thank you very much ;D
Very interesting, I never thought of the letter "r" as vowel...
I should have made more specific, that the English Language is completely rule drive, and many rules that completely contradict themselves.
Nice article.
English is such a difficult language to learn.
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It would be interesting to study further the way your mouth forms all those sounds and how that compares to other languages.
Your posts are interesting especially who take English so seriously. It's nice to read about a more in-depth explanation about the language.
I don't think it is too much necessary to know that much deep for daily life. I am not gonna be am master of language. But it is really exciting to know.
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Thanks for sharing, great info. Not really a pro at this but learning..
I have been reading about this thing from the age of 6.This thing is confusing to me still now.
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It sounds nice but while we pronounce words and we think about this then the people around us will find nothing to do but laugh....
Seems like this goes beyond what can be learnt at school ;-) Wonder who is right lol
Very interesting article. I haven't touched on phonetics since high school!
What about R!?
Nice..reminds me of back in grade school.
:-)
Consonants and vowels are important for Scrabble too!
intresting, would not have thought about it that way myself.
Yeah reminds me of my school days. Dont really miss them when I see this. Kinda confusing to me lol
That's really neat man. I had no idea. I guess saying cheese really does serve a function. :O)
"Consonants and Vowels"
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Great resource thanks for sharing. Does go beyond my knowledge though lol
Great stuff but really confusing. Was surely not my strength at school and this has never changed ;-)
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The process in which we produce sound by using our vocal tract is much like that of a wind instrument. Each sound differs from another sound by a unique combination of features: the way you shape your mouth and tongue and move parts of the vocal apparatus when you make the sound. Air coming from the lungs passes through the vocal tract, which shapes it into different sounds. Then the air exits the vocal tract through the mouth and/or nose.
I had no idea that there is a physical difference in nouns and consonants. Go figure.
When my age was about to 7 or 8 tears.Then my father makes me understand this thing.But still the thing is confusing to me.
I have tried to learn the vowels and consonants to my little daughter.But she is not at all interested about this.
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I don't think in English "r" technically considered to be a vowel because there is no definition in any directory.
I must say that you have to check any professional write whom can identify either "r" is vowel or not.
Although French has nasalized vowels, making them difficult to pronounce for many English speakers, French is a very musical language. This is because words tend to flow from one word to the next with no pause in between them. In situations where there would be a pause, French requires that sounds be added or words changed. This is known as liaison.
The R sound in English (along with W, L, and Y) are known as approximants. This is because the vocal tract is not narrowed enough to produce the audible friction that typically comes with other consonants
The process in which we produce sound by using our vocal tract is much like that of a wind instrument. Each sound differs from another sound by a unique combination of features: the way you shape your mouth and tongue and move parts of the vocal apparatus when you make the sound. Air coming from the lungs passes through the vocal tract, which shapes it into different sounds. Then the air exits the vocal tract through the mouth and/or nose.
so many new terms I learned today..thank you very much..
Great post interesting views. School days are long gone ;-)
Great Post. I guess I never thought of it that way.
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I should begin to learn english grammar.I jumped over this stage.
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it doesn't seem like we are obstructing the airflow.
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I had to go through all the letters and notice if I was obstructing the air flow or not. Funny how you can go all your life exercizing the tongue, lips, throat, etc., and not realize what they are doing. And even though we don't think hard about what they are doing, they are very coordinated, unlike the rest of my body which is always running into edges of tables or countertops and picking up bruises and scratches.
I knew about the stuff but I was not aware of the tounge position. I'll share this with my friends.
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Do you know the south asian language has more vowels then the english language?
Each sound differs from another sound by a unique combination of features: the way you shape your mouth and tongue and move parts of the vocal apparatus when you make the sound.
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Hey... We have 11 Vowels and 52 Consonants. Isn't that nice?
IMO probably the most challenging part about the english language.
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If you ask a person who never said a word in english and the word include an r that is going to be painful for many!
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I never learned about approximants in school. Interesting..
I never realized that as far as the difference with consonants and vowels is what are mouths do to say these. That's pretty cool!
Good article thank's
Once accents come in to it it can become very confusing especially mine - Scottish!
Great Article.
The way you shape your mouth and tongue and move parts of the vocal apparatus when you make the sound. Air coming from the lungs passes through the vocal tract, which shapes it into different sounds. Then the air exits the vocal tract through the mouth and/or nose.
I've never really thought about linguistics this much. Like most people I speak without thinking about how I make the sounds. very interesting!
A consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a constriction or closure at one or more points along the vocal tract. The word consonant comes from Latin meaning "sounding with" or "sounding together", the idea being that consonants don't sound on their own, but only occur with a nearby vowel.This conception of consonants, however, does not reflect a modern linguistic understanding, which defines them in terms of vocal tract constrictions.A vowel is a type of sound for which there is no closure of the throat or mouth at any point where vocalization occurs.
A consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx. Consonants contrast with vowels.Consonants and vowels correspond to distinct parts of a syllable.The distinction between consonant and vowel is not always clear cut: there are syllabic consonants and non-syllabic vowels in many of the world's languages.
This is a really good article, informative and useful. Maybe if you can post about diphthongs too. Thank you for sharing. assignment | custom assignment | assignments | buy assignment | assignment help | assignment writing
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How many 'speech sound' in total, the english language has? Is it 15?
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I can only imagine those with mouth problems at the time of pronouncing a word like this. Maybe embarrassing.
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English is indeed a hard language. However, it at least have written language which can be pronounced.
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Do I remember correctly from linguist classes in my college days that the "wh" sound is one of the hardest to deal with when, say, teaching from a phonics point of view?
I knew a lot of this kind of thing. But i had no idea it was because the different positions of the tounge in the mouth. Really suprised me. Good read.
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Wow... after reading i felt like i had a short crash course on consonants and vowels. Amazing how much these sounds mean to us after all.
I had to go through all the letters and notice if I was obstructing the air flow or not. Funny how you can go all your life exercizing the tongue, lips, throat, etc., and not realize what they are doing. And even though we don't think hard about what they are doing, they are very coordinated, unlike the rest of my body which is always running into edges of tables or countertops and picking up bruises and scratches.
So the fact that consonants obstruct air flow must have something to do with why my music teacher said that consonants are not musical. It is best when singing to underpronounce the "s" sound at the end of a word, otherwise it sounds like you are hissing, especially with a microphone in hand.
So the fact that consonants obstruct air flow must have something to do with why my music teacher said that consonants are not musical. It is best when singing to underpronounce the "s" sound at the end of a word, otherwise it sounds like you are hissing, especially with a microphone in hand.
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Vowels are different from consonant sounds in that they are produced by passing air through different shapes of the mouth and different positions of the tongue and lips.
I knew a lot of this kind of thing. But i had no idea it was because the different positions of the tongue in the mouth. Really surprised me. Good read.
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John - approximants? I thought it was spelled aproximents. Hmmm. Let me double check that, I could be way off base.
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Thanks for info about what is consonants, what is vowels, and the differences.
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If the permutation has the consonants and vowels alternating?
If a permutation of the word 'white' is selected at random, find the
probability that a permutation:
(a.) has the consonants and the vowels alternating;
the answer was 1/10, but how do i get it?
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What does shorter consonants and longer vowels mean in singing?
I am auditioning for Les Miserables as any of the main guy roles. But I sang the beginning of Do You Hear the People Sing? And she said that it was good, but I need to use shorter consonants and longer vowels can you explain what she means please? I am trying mostly for Enjorlas
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This popular and accessible introduction to phonetics is now available in a fully updated second edition. Peter Ladefoged describes how languages use a variety of different sounds, many of them quite unlike any that occur in well-known languages.
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